Integration Essays: Goodwill to all agencies?

It's that time of year again. Not only is Christmas upon us, but the
hoary old issue of integration is up for dissection again in Campaign's
book of Integrated Essays. You may think you've heard it all before, but
while you're stifling that yawn, ask yourself truthfully: can you do it?
Or, if you are a client, do you know someone who can? I suspect that
even if you allow yourself to answer "yes", if you're honest, it'll be
followed swiftly by a "but".

Because, whatever your definition of integration might be - and there's
a whole essay to be written about that - it's likely that its execution
will involve more than just one executor. And we all know what that
means. While your skills and systems might be brilliant, others' might
not be. The integrated process and, indeed, its end-product, is at risk
of being blown horribly off course, beset with bickering among all the
agencies involved along the way.

Perhaps it doesn't have to be that way. But in a risk-shy world of
constricted budgets and unemployment fears, I'll bet my bottom euro that
it will be for the foreseeable future.

One of the most incendiary points of conflict is the question of who is
paid for what and who takes charge. If an integrated campaign is mainly
direct marketing, but includes an online game, created by a digital
specialist who comes up with the killer campaign tagline, which agency
has the greater ownership of the project, the greater responsibility for
it and, ultimately, the greater fiscal reward? And what about any other
agencies also involved?

Then there are those, such as Nitro, whose view of integration is not
centred on the meshing of a communication through different media
channels, but on entwining consumers in a brand experience. This is just
as likely to entail developing a new product or service for a client
than a campaign.

It would seem that clients are no more decided than agencies on how an
integrated comms plan should run. Indeed, some (quite sensibly), gather
all the agencies they'd like to use, and leave them to come up with an
idea and a strategy for execution between them before reporting
back.

The integration debate has certainly moved on as the years have rolled
by. But, just as at Christmas there's a will to co-operate for the good
of all, so there are also often still those flaming family arguments.
Happy integrating!